How to reduce the mobile data usage on Android

Most of the Smartphone users subscribe the data services to access internet on their devices. Due to non-availability affordable wireless (3G or LTE or 4G) unlimited internet tariff, customers have to rely on limited usage prepaid or postpaid net tariffs. So subscribers want to optimize their net usage from the costly 3G/4G tariffs. Here are some helpful & easy tips which may give you more control over mobile data usage.

Data usage settings on Android

Android OS provides you to set the monthly net usage limit. To set the limit, go to Settings->Data Usage->Mobile data (It should be on). You can set the ceiling just by touching the data amount or scrolling the horizontal line. On crossing the data cap you get the warning message.

Restrict the background data

It’s also another way to control the net statistics but I wouldn’t recommend you to use this method as you could miss the important notification or message. So we will do all the configuration manually using individual app settings.

Maximize the Use of Wi-Fi

Many of us have an unlimited wired internet connection at home. You should keep on Wi-Fi on mobile, whenever you are at home. There are other places where one can get free Wi-Fi internet access at public places like Park, Market, Bus stand, Railway station, Airport, Hospitals, Hotel etc. Connecting to Wi-Fi internet is super easy on android; you just need network SSID & password to access the net facility. In public Wi-Fi, you may need to verify the device using OTP password.

Facebook, Twitter & WhatsApp Google Allo are the most common free social applications which are used by most of the android smartphone users. These all Apps are full of multimedia files which not only consumes the storage of the device but also eat the mobile data. You don’t want to waste your mobile data on unwanted images, videos, audio files. Here is the procedure to change the default media download settings.

Video auto-play settings on Facebook App

Open the Facebook App and go to the top right side corner of the screen where you can see a menu tab, click on it. Go App Settings-> Auto-play. Select the option to auto-play the videos “on Wi-Fi connection Only”.

Video auto-play off on Twitter App

Like Facebook, twitter is also a social app where you get lots of videos, news, images etc. to change the default setting of the twitter you need to visit setting page of twitter. Go to Settings-> Data->Video (Video Autoplay). Select the option “Use Wi-Fi only” or “Do not automatically play the videos in Timeline” to save the internet data.

Turn off auto download in WhatsApp android

WhatsApp is now the default messaging application for android subscribers. It is a great free app to chat & share the different type of multimedia files. Here also you can change the default media auto-download setting. For that, you need to go

Settings->Data Usage->Media auto-download

We can do same settings with other social application like Google Allo, Hike, Instagram etc.

Update the Apps via Wi-Fi only

Android Application updates are mandatory to install due to security & other reasons. More the apps you have more the data you would require updating them. So it would be better to use Wi-Fi internet instead of mobile data for this job.

Compress files with Chrome’s Data saver

Smartphone users can browse faster & reduce the net consumption on the device with the use of data server. As per Chrome most of the web traffic goes through Google servers before downloading onto the devices. The server sends the compressed data to chrome, hence it requires less amount of data to download. It can save up to 50% of data volume. To set it on go to Chrome settings->data saves-> Turn it on.

Firefox Data saver for Android

Firefox android version doesn’t have a compression but you can enable the video Autoplay, image auto downloading like the social networking sites. To set up this go to Firefox settings -> Advanced-> Here you can enable or disable following things

Automatic update: You can set it to only over Wi-Fi

Show Images : Only Over Wi-Fi

Allow Autoplay: It will allow you to enable or disable the Autoplay of video or other media content

Download YouTube video through Wi-Fi

YouTube is largest video sharing site used in all over the world. You may find per-downloaded YouTube app on android devices. It allows you to watch its content on offline mode. To save the mobile net, you need to download YouTube content using Wi-Fi access and watch it on offline mode anytime. It will save buffering time & mobile internet charges.

Use the data compression app Opera Max

Opera Max is a free software mobile application that could save the data up to 50%. Like chrome opera max also routes the files through its server using a private VPN connection. All non-encrypted information are sent through their compression server which optimizes videos, images, and web pages to use fewer data. It also allows to block any app from using mobile internet or you can restrict certain apps to Wi-Fi only. We can say it is a total mobile data management tool for android devices. It doesn’t compress the encrypted communications like online transactions, secure HTTPS connection etc.

I hope the article have covered all the essentials setup on individual applications will optimize your mobile data usage.